Designing superhero experiences to motivate physical activity
We have stopped moving, as resources are plentiful and we can simply tap on a mobile phone to order a pizza instead of chasing our food through a forest. We also increasingly work and play in digital spaces instead of the real world. This unprecedented physical inactivity is the root cause of obesity and many other health problems in modern societies.
Although video games are a part of the problem, they also provide solutions in the form of exergames — games that require physical activity, with Pokémon Go as maybe the most well-known example. The players of Pokémon Go have now walked over 20 billion kilometers, enough to get to Pluto and back. One could even say that the boundary between sports and video games is blurring: For example, fencing has utilized electronic sensing and scoring for a while, and Olympic TaeKwonDo now features both wireless impact sensing and a game-like balancing of attacks, where more risky techniques are awarded more points.
A lot of exergaming is about calories and fitness goals. However, I’m more interested in what drives active lifestyles in the long-term. The key is to support so-called intrinsic motivation — making physical activity enjoyable and interesting for its own sake instead of it feeling like a chore. This is where one can look at video games for inspiration, as good games often support all the major motivation factors.
A major component of intrinsic motivation is competence — we like activities we feel we’re good at. In games this often manifests as superhero experiences of running faster, jumping higher, manipulating time, gravity etc. However, this is highly non-trivial to implement in exergames that players control with their bodies. If the game character moves exactly the same as the player, there’s a great feeling of control, but at the same time, the player is bound by the physical restrictions of their body. On the other hand, if the game detects what move the player attempts and then plays back a perfect animated version of it, it can create a feeling of being disconnected with the character, due to delays and errors of the detection (it’s a hard machine learning problem), and a movement vocabulary restricted to predefined animations. This is where many Kinect games failed, the martial arts game Fighters Uncaged as the prime example. I call this problem of having to compromise between control and empowerment the control-empowerment dilemma of exergame design.
The first game where I managed to successfully solve the control-empowerment dilemma was Kick Ass Kung-Fu, a part of my doctoral thesis back in 2004. The players appeared in the game as their video figures, which provides a perfect illusion of control as each nuance of movement is translated to the screen. To implement the superhero empowerment, the game’s physics simulation is manipulated based on computer vision data such that the player runs faster and jumps higher. The key is to do this in a continuous fashion similar to a real-world device like a bungee cord that provides more lift for jumps; there is no point where the game would switch to some predetermined movement, depriving the player from control. One can also supercharge oneself by shouting, inspired by many martial arts emphasizing the shout or “kiai” as part of the attack techniques.
How to choose what to empower and manipulate? I would say it makes most sense to artificially empower abilities that develop slowly such that the player cannot be expected to make much progress during a game. In addition to running speed and jumping height, flexibility is such an ability. Recently, we conducted the world’s first study of exaggerating one’s flexibility in Virtual Reality, finding that a modest amount of exaggeration improves both competence and perceived naturalness of movement.
In some forms of exercise such as climbing, empowering one’s movement is more difficult. However, feelings of achievement and competence can still be supported by diversifying the challenges such that everyone can find something they excel at. Climbing is traditionally focused on finger strength; our Augmented Climbing games diversify the challenge palette to movement timing, spatial perception, and using novel body positions to traverse virtual labyrinths projected on the climbing wall.
Finally, superhero exercise experiences can be created using both digital and physical means, an approach we call Mixed Reality Empowerment. For example, trampolines are widely used in practicing gymnastics, snowboarding etc. to allow one jump higher and stay in the air for a longer time, which greatly helps in practicing aerial techniques. In 2012, we created the world’s first mixed reality trampoline game prototypes that utilized a real trampoline, computer vision body tracking, and a screen on which the players see themselves in a virtual world. I proposed this topic already when I applied for my professorship at Aalto, as I felt that many exergames failed to consider the importance of the physical play environment. Recently, this line of research has culminated in Valo Motion releasing a series of commercial trampoline games, including Super Stomp, the world’s first multiplayer mixed-reality trampoline game. A paper on the game’s design and player experience will be presented at the CHI PLAY 2019 conference in Barcelona, Spain, on October 23rd.
Super Stomp is the pinnacle of our superhero sports research — what next? Although even more extreme experiences could be designed, e.g., by combining AR technology with indoor skydiving, such setups are too expensive to build at a university research lab. Recently, we have shifted our focus from empowerment to supporting curious exploration of the movement opportunities of one’s everyday environment, in order to make exercise more accessible and open people’s eyes to how one can find meaningful physical activity and challenges almost anywhere. For example, we are investigating how to automatically detect, visualize and recommend parkour practice spots and techniques based on large-scale online image data, e.g., Flickr and Google Street View. The illustrations of this blog post showcase some of my favorite parkour spots around the Ruoholahti and Jätkäsaari areas in Helsinki.
Perttu Hämäläinen
Perttu Hämäläinen is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor of computer games at Aalto University. His mission is to improve health through exergames and digitally augmented sports that promote physical activity. His research interests include exergame design and gameplay innovation through technologies such as AI, procedural animation, and computer vision.
More about intrinsic motivation in games, sports, and exercise:
Ryan, R. M., Rigby, C. S., & Przybylski, A. (2006). The motivational pull of video games: A self-determination theory approach. Motivation and emotion, 30(4), 344–360.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 54–67.
Frederick-Recascino, C. M. (2002). Self-determination theory and participation motivation research in the sport and exercise domain. Handbook of self-determination research, 277.
Wilson, P. M., Mack, D. E., & Grattan, K. P. (2008). Understanding motivation for exercise: a self-determination theory perspective. Canadian Psychology, 49(3), 250.
